If you haven’t seen it, let me say John Adams mini-series is powerful. I can’t say how accurate it is historically. In fact, it doesn’t show the historic backstory. I had to stop and look up what was going on. Yet, it was powerful enough to spur me to revisit my American History.

One of the series’ most poignant scenes occurs at the beginning, the Boston Massacre. I wondered why they started the movie at this point in John Adams life. On reflection, it was the Boston Massacre and his defense of the British soldiers that gives us the measure of the man.

On March 5, 1770, Private Hugh White stood post alone at the Custom House on King Street. On one account, a group of angry colonists began insulting him and threatening violence. Another account states, a single person started with the taunts that led others to join.

Threats escalated to throwing rocks and other objects. Bells rang throughout the city signaling a fire. The men rushed to the street presumably to help put out a fire. Captain Thomas Preston arrived with additional soldiers, assessed the situation, and assumed a defensive position. The riot ended with soldiers opening fire. Eight soldiers against approximately 50, five colonists dead.

What caused the Boston Massacre?

As a child I learned that from the ending of the French and Indian war in 1763 to the Boston Massacre in 1770, tensions in the colonies had been growing due to excessive taxes and acts passed by the British Crown and Parliament. These tensions erupted in the Boston Massacre. The natural assumption led to the conclusion that the British Government provoked Americans with excessive taxes and the soldiers were guilty. One article I read began with “American blood was shed on American soil.” (ushistory.org)

Let’s not jump to conclusions. Did you know the Colonists considered themselves British subjects? In fact, before the Boston Massacre, Samuel Adams (second cousin to John Adams) wrote essays where he argued that the Colonists were still Brittons and as such they retained the right to tax themselves.  Samuel wrote that without representation in Parliament, any attempt to tax the colonies was an abuse of power. John Dickinson, a Pennsylvanian lawyer, also published essays arguing that Parliament had the right to regulate trade but did not have the right to levy taxes for revenue.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Well, crossing the pond in boats took a lot longer in those days. It was easier for the Colonists to simply not follow the laws. They didn’t pay the taxes and the Crown sent troops to enforce the law. Having a bunch of soldiers living in your city to make you follow a law you disagreed with does sound like a tension builder.

However, I found a reference that sheds a new light on life in the 1770s. Serena Zabin wrote The Boston Massacre, a Family History. This book is an ethnohistoric study of Boston at the time of the Massacre. She tells a different story. When the troops were sent to Boston, some brought their wives and children. Some of the single men married local women. Some colonists complained about the British officers being inebriated and a local pub owner wasn’t happy about the additional military personnel frequenting his establishment. Yet, overall, we have a community where the local people and the stationed troops were learning to live together and at times find common ground.

All of this really doesn’t tell us why the Boston Massacre occurred. What happened on that night to turn an altercation between a lone sentry and one or a few colonists into full blown riot? Unfortunately, with all that has been written, we still do not have a clear picture of exactly what happened.

A Trial with Many Firsts

John Adams, a patriot and a lawyer, decided to put his livelihood and family at risk. He defended the British soldiers. Let’s stop for a moment and realize the importance of John Adams defending the British soldiers. He knew defending the soldiers could cause serious harm to his law practice, even cause him to move his family for safety. Adams thought the British Government had been unjust with the Colonists. He knew the soldiers were in Boston at the Crown’s decree. He had been taxed as much as the next man. Yet, he felt it was his duty to provide these soldiers with a fair trial.

According to British law, all subjects had the right to a defense. These were not American courts. American courts were not a thing yet. They were British Colonies and the trial followed British law. There had been other lawyers willing to take the case, but only if John Adams worked with them. These facts alone did not convince him to take the case. John read the reports and decided there was sufficient confusion in the testimonies that no one really knew what happened. He knew it was his duty to defend the soldiers.

I don’t remember being taught any of the above in school. What I remember being taught was the British soldiers fired into a crowd and killed colonists. It was an incident with a date. It led to the American Revolution.

The real lesson of the Boston Massacre resides in the character of one man, John Adams. In an age when there was social anger and political descent, John Adams displayed courage to stand by his principles even if it meant that he would be shunned by his fellow colonists, possibly attacked by a mob of his peers. He did what he knew to be right and moral.

As I read more about this case, I’ve learned that John Adams set the precedence for defense layers in American jurisprudence. I’m sure that was not his immediate goal. I have no idea of the accuracy of the court room scene; however, it is a powerful scene … and I do love a court room drama.

What I read of the trial matches well with the arguments presented in the miniseries. Adams was masterful in his strategy. He stuck to facts, stayed away from blaming the colonists, yet proved the soldiers were in fear for their lives. Self-defense.

Although the case followed British law, it deviated in a few respsects:

• This was the first case where reasonable doubt was used as a standard.
• It was the first time a jury was sequestered.
• The case used the testimony of Dr. Jeffries who tended to one of the dying victims. The dying colonist had said he understood why the soldiers did what they did.
• A transcript of the trial was circulated.

The results of the trial were mixed. Only two soldiers were convicted of manslaughter, not put to death. The transcript was not like a transcript as we would know it, more like scribes taking notes. Yet, it provided sufficient information for the public who were not in the courtroom to know what happened and why.

What was the Significance?

Colonists were not happy about the result but realized the trial had been fair. They did not escalate riots in the streets. Then, as today, when there is a lot of emotion attached to a case, the city could have exploded. Yet that did not happen.  In fact, the trial itself was not perceived as the battle cry for the American Revolution at that time. No one was talking about revolution. It was only in hindsight that historians claimed it to be a pivotal moment.

After few months of reading articles on the internet, it is my opinion (which could change as I learn more) that the significance of the Boston Massacre resides in the defense presented by one man, who stood for what he knew to be right and fair, against the odds, and in doing so established legal precedents that are still used today in the American Justice system.

During his term as second president of the United States, Adams would write of the trial …

“The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country. Judgment of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions of the Quakers or Witches, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right.”   

–John Adams

References

Zabin, S. 2020. The Boston Massacre: a family History . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Boston, New York.
http://www.battlefields.org
http://www.history.com
http://www.billofrightsinstitute.org
http://www.ecucation.nationalgeographic.org
http://www.john-adams-heritage.com
http://www.ushistory.org
http://www.origins.osu.edu
http://www.smithsonianmag.com
http://www.thehistoryjunkie.com
http://www.americancorner.com
http://www.masshist.org
http://www.britannica.com